PHR Wins at MIT Solve with Groundbreaking MediCapt App

September 24, 2018October 11, 2018Sexual Violence

New York, NY

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is honored to have been selected among
eight winners in the “Frontlines of Health” Solver category at this year’s MIT
Solve event. PHR showcased its new innovative MediCapt technology to an
audience and panel of expert judges in New York and walked away with a $10,000
grant.

Karen Naimer, the director of PHR’s Program on Sexual
Violence in Conflict Zones, outlined the benefits of the groundbreaking app,
and demonstrated why it is crucial in helping secure justice for sexual
violence survivors.

“Every year, tens
of thousands of adults and children around the world are raped in armed
conflict, in their communities, in their homes. Most survivors don’t report
these crimes, but some do come forward…. Tragically, most of these cases fail
because of poor evidence, perpetuating a culture of impunity. Evidence fails
because forensic exams are rarely conducted, medical charts are incomplete or
illegible; doctors, police, lawyers, and judges – they don’t communicate with
each other; hospitals and police stations don’t have locked cabinets to store
confidential medical records – risking loss, theft, or tampering,” Naimer told
the event.

“At Physicians for Human Rights, we use
science and medicine to document human rights violations. Since 2011, we’ve
been working with medical and legal professionals to improve the way they
capture, preserve, and transmit forensic evidence to help support local
prosecutions of these crimes,” Naimer explained.

In Kenya and in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, PHR, with its partners, has been active
in developing new skills such as forensic photography and the use of
standardized forms to make documentation more accurate. At the heart of this
work is the development of a groundbreaking new mobile app, MediCapt – a digital
medical form with photo-capture capacity which allows the secure storing of
forensic evidence in the cloud, and the ability to safely transmit it to those
in the justice and law enforcement sectors.

“MediCapt has the
potential to document sexual violence cases anywhere, anytime. It can be used
with any language, any form, and within any legal jurisdiction. We see the
opportunity for growth and to scale this new technology to allow for more
convictions and greater justice for all sexual violence survivors,” Naimer
said.

The winning grant
money, funded by Solve, will go towards the development and expansion of MediCapt.